


people aren't usually perfect (but you can love them anyway)

by beepbedeep



Category: Sex Education (TV)
Genre: !!!!!!!!, F/M, SHE IS LOVED, SHE SHOULD BE LOVED, really really really Maeve just doesn't deserve to be alone, whooP, why don't the writers understand this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22426711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepbedeep/pseuds/beepbedeep
Summary: There is a point in the future, not so far off. It is brilliant and glittery and full of an abundance of large windows for the light to shine through. Otis fits her head under his chin and wraps her in warm sweaters that smell just like him in the morning. Aimee holds her hand and instead of holding each other down they spin in endless circles, twirling through the world.
Relationships: Aimee Gibbs & Maeve Wiley, Otis Milburn/Maeve Wiley
Comments: 12
Kudos: 114





	people aren't usually perfect (but you can love them anyway)

There really ought to be a world, Maeve thinks, in which she is not alone. A world where she lives in a house (a _home_ ) with a backyard and rent that she doesn’t have to worry about paying and parents who are _there_ to do all the typical annoying wonderful things parents are supposed to. (she can’t think of any, not off the top of her head, because she can’t really imagine it, fictional families are to her what outer space is to most people, defiantly there but likely impossible to reach, with the constant change of fiery combustion) (she understands the theory, just not the practice) There is a world where she tickles her little sister every morning to wake her up (because in this world they live in the same house) and they eat breakfast with their brother in the kitchen because there is _plenty of food_ that the _adults_ worried about buying. Really, there just should be a world where she is _safe_ , and _taken care of_ , by the people who are supposed to love her the most. There is a world where she is protected, where her defenses suck but that’s ok because she’s never had a reason to build them, where she is cocooned in love and the buoyant optimism that comes with a reasonable family. There is a world, Maeve knows, where her biggest problems are homework and dishes and if she has time on Friday night to go hang out with her friends. 

In real life she has . . . not that.

Because, actually, Maeve _is_ alone. Chillingly, endlessly, bone deep, talk-to-yourself-at-night-sleep-with-a-knife-cry-during-dinner level alone, like she’s falling down a hole into the center of the earth. And the thing is, she’s been falling for _years_. One day, maybe when her mom left, maybe when her brother did, maybe the first time a guy a few trailers over slide his hands along her shoulders and she wanted to light herself on fire, she got pushed into this _pit_ , and she can _see the light_ , like it’s made of glass or something and right on the other side there are all these happy people living their normal lives and she is _so close to touching them_ but she _can’t_. She’s still falling. And as she keeps falling she realizes how much father it is to the core of the earth than she thought, how deep and full the planet is, and she is _watching_ everyone on solid ground go about their days and she is still _falling_ , scrabbling at chips and holds in the wall that _do not exist_ because glass is smooth. She is lots of things, a (really, really good) student, harsh when she needs to be, on the edge of infamy at school, _lots of things, really_ , but she only ever feels like one. The minute Maeve closes her eyes, even for a second, in class or on the bus, she shrinks backwards, down into a twelve-year-old girl who nobody wanted to stick around for. The world is big and she is small and that doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to change.

Luckily, change is inevitable. And Maeve is not very good at being alone.

Aimee is the first, she shows up in Maeve’s life one, blazing like the human flame of glory that she is, and refuses to take no for an answer. They’re different, opposites in every way, except for the bits where they are _exactly the same_ and get along _perfectly_ and even when they don’t they still love each other and it works out pretty well. Aimee is like the sun, warm and bright and distracting, necessary for Maeve’s survival and when she comes to the trailer (the first person Maeve has ever brought back) the room feels bigger, like all the darkest corners are illuminated. Aimee has a way of doing that to people, showing up and shining with love so brightly that the chilliest ice melts and as the ice age exits all you can do is wrap your arms around her waist and never, ever let go. (Aimee hums when she’s not thinking about it, songs from the radio, commercial jingles, and they spend hours and hours curled up on couches, her head on Maeve’s shoulder, quietly filling empty spaces up with her presence.) Aimee is, more often than not, Maeve’s one and only, the person she would take to a desert island. Her _being there_ softens the world’s edges and one day Maeve wakes up to a string of texts about cookies and realizes that she is _not alone_.

There are other people, kind of, coming in waves and starts and bursts. People like Jackson and Ms. Sands, people who love her in some capacity (even if she doesn’t figure it out until it’s too late), people who push her and change her and challenge her and mostly believe in her. even after everything with Jackson is terrible he still smiles at her in the hallway when it’s not weird in _just the same way he used to_ and breathing gets a little easier. Ms. Sands is the whole reason Maeve has a future, because she was pulled kicking and screaming into the open by this teacher who _cares about her_ and Maeve can imagine a time in ten years when they are peers, maybe getting coffee, discussing their lives and Ms. Sands will smile like a rose blooming and the room will feel _full_. (the room feels full already, when she tells Maeve that she can do this, achieve that, that she matters and is cared for and is going to _do great things_.) Eric, surprisingly, is a recent addition to the small group of people she considers . . . well, not _friends_ , but people who would care if she was bleeding out on the sidewalk or something. He’s Otis’s friend first and foremost, but Maeve is surprised by how much better her day gets when he waves at her across the hall or smiles during assembly. So many people in her life spend most of their time lying/being generally terrible, and Eric is the most genuine person she’s ever met. His life _sucks_ sometimes too, differently than Maeve’s, and she doesn’t want him to pretend to be fine all the time, he doesn’t owe the world his happiness, but his bright face, despite everything, shining in a sea of awfulness makes her really glad to be at school. 

There’s also her family, but they aren’t a real option, they’re barely real people to her. Most of the time it feels vaguely like she’s related to ghosts, memories, obsolete entities who abandoned her so long ago that she can’t waste time caring anymore. ( _she can’t she can’t she can’t she can’t she’s fine she’s fine she’s fine she’s fine_ ) (she cries herself to sleep regularly, but Maeve is used to living an instant ramen version of her life, adding water to fill the empty spaces where other people should be)

She reads books, all of them, as many as she can possibly get her hands on, and slides into the stories, collects characters as friends when actual people won’t look at her. Books are already written, their endings are known and work out the same way every time. She flees into stories and they lift her up, as if somewhere in the world, things really can feel limitless. Somewhere, she can be loved.

And, she has Otis. (most importantly, least importantly, is she intensely lucky or does the world hate her, Maeve lost the ability to quantitatively think about their relationship.) It’s just _essential_ , which is _terrifying_ , because she doesn’t depend on _anyone_ , not anymore, but Otis appeared and they have been accidentally wound up in each other ever since.) There was probably a choice, somewhere in the beginning, where they could have said _no_ , said _let’s not do this, let’s not need each other_ , but they leaned forwards instead of stepping back and now they are intrinsically attached. Sometimes it feels like a blessing and other days it throbs like a curse but either way she cannot imagine her life any other way. He can be the _worst_ and so can she, and it’s easy to forget that they are working through a tidal wave of different kinds of trauma, but she feels less alone just knowing he exists and he feels realer when she winks at him and for a long time nothing between then is easy. The alternative is to not be in each other’s lives though, and even when they are hurting each other they cannot leave, leaving is retreating back into an undefined pit of dark awful loneliness and if their knowing each other hurts it’s only because they need it so desperately. 

And after a while, it gets better. For way too long they’re defined by loving each other and _not saying anything_ , which, as Maeve points out later, is cute in Harry Potter but not so cute in real life. Smashing down all your feelings about another person is terrible and almost ruins them, but one day after everything’s gone to hell for the twelfth time, Maeve looks over at him with the most exhausted eyes, and shakes her head, almost imperceptibly. It could mean any number of things, _I can’t do this anymore, pretending to hate you, I love you and it hurts, why do we keep lying to each other, we’re supposed to be better than this_ and it probably means all of them. Later they’ll talk, Otis will sort out every nuance of this expression, but for now he just surges forwards and their lips meet and it tastes like honesty. Like hope. (which are much more fun than dancing around on the burning coals of their mutual confusion trying to not get burned ever was) 

There is a point in the future, not so far off. It is brilliant and glittery and full of an abundance of large windows foe the light to shine through. Otis fits her head under his chin and wraps her in warm sweaters that smell just like him in the morning. Aimee holds her hand and instead of holding each other down they spin in endless circles, twirling through the world. Maeve has friends, real friends, like Eric who comes over and tells her stories about ever art of his life, Jackson who can still make her laugh like no one else, even Ola whose sharp eyes miss nothing, who never hesitates to push Maeve in the right direction. She still reads books for company, and cries in the middle of the night (the only time when her makeup won’t be ruined) but Aimee talks about the books with her, giggling over anything remotely funny in them, and Otis slides his arm around her at night, whispering onto her hair, and her life still might involve the occasional needle, but nothing stings the way it used to.  
Maeve decides, she has the people she has and they aren’t perfect (see: getting drunk and throwing words like daggers) but they are pretty great (see: apologizing and wrapping her in safety when the world feels like it’s closing in on her edges). She’s not alone.


End file.
